Poetry. In poems that alternate between the poignant and the irreverent, oftentimes hopscotching across both, Kurt W. Olsson writes of a world where everything's a bit off-kilter, leading the reader on a strange odyssey. "'Because God is dead the spire on the hill / appears much whiter than it should.' Often echoing. as in these lines, the spare, elegant authority of Stevens, Olsson's book presents us with the funny, sad world of the socially inept. It is our world, peopled with our least attractive selves...but beneath the surface of these otherwise nameless characters who toil nine-to-five lie the deeper, uncivilized passions: 'terror, brutal anger, and un-killable yearning' the hand, itself, knows. With subtlety and tenderness, these poems sing of that 'unrecognizable self' that waits to be named'"--Peter Ramos.

Author City: Washington, DC USA

Kurt S. Olsson grew up in Troy, New York. A former Peace Corps volunteer, he has published poems in many journals, including Antioch Review, Field, Poetry, and The Threepenny Review. He lives just outside of Washington, D.C., with his wife and two daughters.